There’s a saying that goes something like this: I against my brother, and I and my brother against the world. That’s also a fair, if laconic, synopsis of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer-winning play, the first ever won by an African-American woman. Topdog takes on issues of race, masculinity, sibling rivalry, and devastated family structures in furious … Read more
Minneapolis’s Lake Harriet is known for many things—its bandshell and summer concerts, multitudes of strollers, kamikaze inline skaters talking on cell phones, and cyclists shamelessly riding the latest goofy recumbent bike. As an urban lake collecting runoff from treated lawns and storm sewers, it’s not the first place I’d go for drinking water. On any … Read more
The Guthrie’s annual spot of Dickens, as always, remains a recommended option for your holiday theatergoing this year, but it’s always possible that four dead people scaring the hell out of an old man isn’t Christmassy enough for you. In that case, why not try a story about a kid whose parents are dead, or … Read more
David Sedaris’s wry and reliably funny tale of his soul-flattening job as a Macy’s Christmas elf has become a holiday tradition in its own right, taking its place in a sardonic sub-pantheon of Santa tales that includes A Charlie Brown Christmas and Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story. After gaining fame in monologue form on NPR … Read more
The trees outside were blowing and the sky was threatening to open up for the first time in months. It was a perfect night for a Grimm Brothers-style fairy tale, and Elizabeth Von Beringberg was treating ten members of the Minneapolis Writers’ Workshop to her version of exactly that. Gathered around a table in a … Read more
The ordinary menu and strikingly brief wine list could make Marcus Samuelsson run screaming from this place, but perhaps there is a lesson of survival in the forty-seven years of steadfast service Al and Alma’s has offered Lake Minnetonkans. Overlooking Cook’s Bay in Mound, this once-seasonal hangout for boaters now remains open nearly year-round, closing … Read more
When ex-president Millard Fillmore led a steamboat expedition up the Mississippi 149 years ago, it may have looked like a publicity stunt for the Know-Nothing party. Maybe he was just looking for a good cup of coffee brewed fresh from organic, shade-grown beans. Of course, in 1854, all coffee was organic and shade-grown by default. … Read more
No, they’re not giants yet. But they loom pretty large. Brooklynites John Flansburgh and John Linnell, aka They Might Be Giants, now wield the awesome power that comes with winning a Grammy for writing a sitcom theme. But they’re still very much the same lovably eccentric cult rockers, singing about James K. Polk, purple toupees, … Read more
Everyone has a Great Aunt Tootie they haul out for the holidays. She sits in the corner calling everyone by the wrong name and talking about the turkey she had back in ’29 that was really made out of dirt. Someone thought it was a great idea to bring her, but now nobody knows what … Read more
I don’t know what the exact clinical classification would be of my particular personality defect, I’m a person who regrets nothing and yet dreads everything. Maybe there isn’t even a name for it, and one day I could have this dysfunction named after me. “Yep, we finally had our aunt committed due to her lifelong … Read more